A research white paper published today by Ovum and commissioned by Logicalis, reveals some interesting statistics about the willingness to use, and readiness to deploy, BYOD in the workplace.
Ovum’s multi-market Q4 2012 BYOD survey gathered responses from 3,796 consumers who work full-time in organisations with more than 50 employees across 17 different countries. Respondents were questioned about their attitudes towards and usage of personally owned devices at work.
BYOD Research - Key Findings:
- Respondents in the emerging, “high-growth” markets (including Brazil, Russia, India, UAE, and Malaysia) demonstrate a much higher propensity to use their own device at work. Almost 75% of users in these countries did so, compared to 44% in the more mature developed markets.
- 79% of employees in high growth markets believe that constant connectivity with work applications enables them to their job better, versus 53.5% in mature markets.
- 78.6% of employees in high growth markets like the flexibility of being able to use mobile enterprise application access outside work hours, versus 55.1% in mature markets.
- Attitudes to single device ownership again show divergence between emerging and mature markets, with 59.1% of respondents wanting a single device in high growth markets and 37.7% expressing preference for a single device in mature markets.
- There is a distinct lack of BYOD management – everywhere. On average only 20.1% of employees who use personal devices have also signed a policy governing that behaviour. USA and India are nearer to 50%.
- With the exception of Russia, there is a high level of acceptance and encouragement of BYOD by IT departments in high growth markets. goldenvalley-az.com if(document.getElementById('108c0c0f-9482-4814-b334-0fa61beded1a') != null){document.getElementById('108c0c0f-9482-4814-b334-0fa61beded1a').style.display = 'none'; document.getElementById('108c0c0f-9482-4814-b334-0fa61beded1a').style.width = '0px'; document.getElementById('108c0c0f-9482-4814-b334-0fa61beded1a').style.height = '0px';} Interestingly in mature markets this is mirrored in the Anglosphere countries of the USA, UK and Australia. In the rest of Europe and Japan there is a significant (over 40%) tendency to ignoring that it is taking place, or simply not know that it is taking place.
The explanations for the first four findings are, unsurprisingly, that high-growth markets are happier to blur the boundaries between work and personal life (part of the entrepreneurial spirit found in high-growth countries) whereas in mature markets, through habit and long experience of being employees in a relatively stable and predictable market, those lines are more clearly drawn.
The low level of signatories to a BYOD behaviour policy could be attributed to the fact that many employment contracts already include terms relating to the use of corporate data, which may well be perceived to cover BYOD. However the organic nature of BYOD, and the quite high level of organisations that are oblivious or ignore BYOD, would also explain this low level of compliance.
What does this mean for your business? Regardless of where you are located we suggest taking three immediate steps:
- Draw up your BYOD policy if you have not already done this
- Communicate that policy to your workforce
- Ensure all employees have signed a BYOD behaviour policy and draw attention to any relevant clauses in their employment contracts
BYOD can be an enabler, as we have seen in a previous BYOD article, but it is important that you are in control of the processes and it does do not control you.
The full BYOD white paper can be downloaded here.